


And The Story Goes Like This

by aoyama (HowlinForHale)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Post-War, Ambiguity, M/M, Mentions of Blood, mysterious OMC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowlinForHale/pseuds/aoyama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling, it seems, is all too easy for Daiki when it comes to Kuroko Tetsuya. Written for OTP Battle at basketballpoetsociety</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Story Goes Like This

“ _Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away...”_

_The children sitting on mats around the teacher's chair quieten down when the middle-aged man opens a thick, leather bound book and begins to read. His deep, calming voice reverberates in the playroom, painting pictures of beasts and dragons, princes and princesses on the walls. Not a single voice interrupts his tale, and every child is captivated by the man and his book._

_Every child except for one._

“ _Daiki-kun,” the man says after the story has been told. “Did you not like the fairy tale?”_

_Daiki, who had been staring absentmindedly out of the window the whole time, shrugs his shoulders, obviously not interested._

“ _It's boring,” he says. “Mum reads them to me a~ll the time and they always end the same. They always live happily ever after anyway, so it doesn't matter what happened before.” He crosses his arms, pouting a little. “'sides, dragons aren't real. I wanna play outside, I like basketball the most. Basketball is_ real. _”_

_The man smiles, one of his hands caressing the old book held against his chest._

“ _Alright, we'll all go out to play after naptime, how about that?”_

“ _But I'm not ti-”_

“After _naptime, Daiki-kun.”_

“ _Fi~ne.”_

_Daiki gets up and runs over to where the other children are already preparing to settle into their little beds. The man stands up from his crouch as well and looks after his retreating figure, still smiling._

“ _Real, huh?”_

_He chuckles quietly to himself and looks out of the same window Daiki had been staring out of earlier._

_A wind breezes through the room, ruffling the man's hair. Not a single window is open._

_The man's hand strokes over the time-worn leather, once, twice, three times, gentle, loving, slow._

_He doesn't stop smiling._

*-*-*-*-*

Years later, Daiki doesn't remember any of it. In fact, he doesn't think much about his past at all.

He's twenty, and the world is in his hands.

Or West Tokyo, at least.

Daiki whistles as he patrols through his assigned district. The Touou gang has recently joined forces with the much larger Kiseki, and together they were able to extend their area of influence to all of Western Tokyo. Fuel is weighed in gold after the war, and for some miraculous reason, the gas stations in West Tokyo have survived the pillaging that had started directly after the war's end mostly unharmed. Several years have passed since then and the city is largely in the hands of gangs, each having secured a smaller or bigger district of the city and trying to protect it from being invaded by members of enemy gangs. The 'normal' citizens, on the other hand, go about their daily lives much like they had done before the war and stay out of the fights as much as possible.

With West Tokyo, Touou and the Kiseki have really struck the jackpot. Being Touou's leader, Daiki has gained quite a few privileges out of the association with the bigger gang – a better apartment, less paperwork (some guy named Akashi said he'd be better suited to take care of it), and, most important of all, being assigned to patrol at the very heart of their territory instead of on the disputed outskirts.

Which basically means Daiki can be alone and goof off for the whole day.

Daiki hums to himself as he strolls through the streets. He doesn't run into any other gang members on his way – it's still early, barely past dawn. He likes the silence.

He's about to take out a cigarette and light it – another privilege of being one of the Kiseki's leaders is easy access to smokes – when he bumps into something small and solid.

“Whoa!”

Daiki catches himself before he can fall backwards, cursing the guy who must've left this huge box standing in the middle of the street. Only, when he looks down, blue eyes stare right back.

Daiki almost falls on his ass again, this time from surprise.

“What the fuck! Where the hell did you come from?!”

The small guy with blue eyes and hair looks at him impassively, as if Daiki's outburst and the gun he's currently holding in his hand don't affect him at all.

“I was here the whole time,” he says after a pause. “Rather, it was you who bumped into me.”

“Hah?!” Daiki growls. “Bullshit! This street was empty before you suddenly showed up in front of me!” Daiki narrows his eyes. “And you don't look like one of the Kiseki guys. Tell me who you are or I'm blowing your head off right here.”

The guy blinks at him for a second, then his gaze wanders to the muzzle of the gun in front of him, his eyes crossing slightly. It looks kind of adorable, Daiki thinks, repressing a snort.

“I am Kuroko Tetsuya,” the guy says, looking back up again. “And I am on the way to see my grandmother.”

“Right,” Daiki says, “and I'm the princess of China. No one but the Touou and Kiseki families live here. D'you think I'm stupid or something?”

The guy – Tetsuya – has the guts to look Daiki up and down as if he's seriously thinking about how to answer that question. Daiki bristles. He's not used to not being feared; Tetsuya's calmness is disconcerting.

“No,” Tetsuya says at last, “but then again, I haven't known you for very long.”

“Listen up you little-”

“And I'm not lying,” he continues. “My grandmother lives in our old family house in the suburbs. She refuses to leave it, and I am responsible for bringing her some of our family's supplies. This is the fastest way.”

Daiki frowns, but the gun in his hand lowers just slightly.

“So what, you wanna tell me that you've been just... taking strolls through the center of our territory this whole time? Without being caught?”

At this, Tetsuya tilts his head to the side and regards Daiki with something akin to curiosity.

“Yes,” he says. Pauses. “...People don't usually notice me.”

“Huh,” Daiki mutters, thinking back to how he'd been so sure the street had been empty and how this guy had seemed to pop out of the blue. Had Daiki not bumped into him, who knows, they might just have walked right past each other. 

When Daiki looks back to the other end of his gun, there's no one there.

“Oi!” he cries as he turns around and sees Tetsuya's retreating back. “Where d'ya think you're going? We're not finished here!”

Tetsuya stops and turns back, and when Daiki has jogged up to him, he hears him mumble “...really can see me...” under his breath.

“Don't just _walk off_ when someone points a gun at you, Jesus fucking Christ,” Daiki says exasperatedly, although his gun is already lowered, hanging loosely by his side. 

“I apologize,” Tetsuya says, “but if I don't hurry, I will be late and my grandmother will worry.”

“Oh yeah? And what'cha got in your bag there? How do I know you're not a spy or a gun smuggler or something?”

Wordlessly, Tetsuya opens his bag and shows its contents to Daiki – it's full of tupperware containers and-

“Is that... _cake_?” Daiki asks open-mouthed, feeling the drool gather in his mouth. Cake is almost as rare as cigarettes, these days.

“Yes,” Kuroko nods. “My mother baked it yesterday.”

“Oi, kid. Tell you what, I'll let you pass if you gimme a-”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“This cake is for my grandmother only. And I'm not a kid.”

Daiki shakes his head and silently regards the guy standing in front of him. He has never met someone this polite yet also gutsy. It's kind of intriguing.

“Alright,” he says out loud, having made a decision. “You can pass through my territory, but I'll go with you. I'm not gonna just let anyone through on my watch.”

For a moment, Tetsuya looks as if he might consider simply vanishing again. Then he lets out a sigh.

“Very well. But please put your gun away, my grandmother doesn't like weapons and neither do I.”

He starts walking again and Daiki falls in step beside him, grinning broadly.

“I'm Daiki, by the way,” he says. “Aomine Daiki.”

Tetsuya bows slightly. “Nice to meet you,” he says.

“It is? Really?”

“No, it's a figure of speech, Aomine-kun. And I can see your hand trying to sneak into by backpack, please stop it.”

Daiki laughs, for the first time in a long while. This is gonna be  _fun_ .

“Oh come on, Tetsu, just one bite!”

“Please don't call me that.”

*-*-*-*-*

And that was the story of how Aomine Daiki met Kuroko Tetsuya. That story ends here.

But the real story of these two has just begun. 

On that day, Daiki accompanies Tetsuya to his grandmother and, despite being just the littlest bit intimidated by the slightly crazy old lady, actually enjoys himself. On the way back – he had insisted on bringing Tetsuya back to the Tokyo Center as well, not because he was suspicious of the guy, but to have an excuse to talk for a bit longer – it's already noon and to Daiki's neverending amusement, the other gang members miling about greet and talk to him without noticing the small guy next to him even once. When they arrive on the far edges of the Touou-Kiseki territory, Tetsuya bows low and thanks Daiki for being his escort although both of them know Tetsuya would've been just fine by himself. Daiki grins and does a mock-bow as well, and that grin stays on his face hours after they parted.

Over the next days, Daiki pays more attention on his watch than he ever did before, until his head starts hurting from constantly squinting his eyes. Luckily for him, it seems as if Tetsuya is just as curious about Daiki as Daiki is about him, because he's sure that the other man would've managed to stay unnoticed had he really wanted to. They walk together every time Tetsuya has to visit his grandmother.

And just like that, they somehow become friends.

Daiki gets to know that Tetsuya's family has always been well-off and that it hasn't changed even after the war. (The only thing that  _has_ changed, is that 'well-off' now means getting to eat meat more than once a week and actually still remembering what chocolate tastes like.) His parents and him now live in central Tokyo, which is one of the safest and richest districts, while Tetsuya's grandmother is still guarding their family house in the suburbs.

Tetsuya gets to hear about Daiki's past, something he rarely ever talks about. Maybe because it's just so damn cliché – losing his whole family in the war, growing up on the streets, joining a gang and being happier for it. The only difference is that Daiki is actually  _good_ , really good even, and has managed to fight his way to a leader position despite being only twenty. And now here he is, the big bad wolf patrolling the streets of his skyscraper forest.

When he says that, Tetsuya laughs, for the first time in Daiki's presence. For some reason, Daiki can't quite stop thinking about his mouth, after that.

And as unbelievable as it might be, Tetsuya's presence actually does Daiki quite some good. It's nice, he thinks sometimes, to be able to talk to someone who doesn't fear you, who sees you as their equal, whose respect you have to work hard for. It's all the more worth it, in the end. And there's just something about Tetsuya's bluntness that's unbelievably charming – cute, even, if Daiki would let himself admit it.

Besides, Tetsuya plays basketball. That's, like, a thousand pluses in Daiki's book.

“You have really big hands,” Tetsuya says one day as they play on a court in West Tokyo. With the same blank expression on his face, he holds up Daiki's wrist with one of his hands and puts his other one against Daiki's palm. Tetsuya's fingers barely reach past the third digits of Daiki's fingers. Daiki is entranced by it.

Slowly, Daiki's fingers curl around Tetsuya's smaller ones. When Daiki looks up from their joined hands, Tetsuya is already staring back, his eyes a little dazed. Without thinking, Daiki's other hand gently grips the hair in the back of Tetsuya's neck, and when Tetsuya tilts his head up, Daiki leans down and kisses him.

Their kiss lasts only for a few seconds and all they really do is press their closed lips together – but to Daiki, it feels better than the best of smokes. He pulls away, but doesn't go far; their faces are still so close that Daiki feels Tetsuya's warm breath on his lips as he gazes into the other's eyes.

The silence stretches on for a while, both of them too caught up in the moment.

Finally, Daiki breaks.

“Was that...” he begins.

“Your mouth,” Tetsuya interrupts, his voice a little hoarse. “...Your mouth is also big.”

Daiki snorts quietly, making Tetsuya's lashes flutter.

“The better to kiss you with,” he grins and presses his lips against Tetsuya's over and over to prove it.

*-*-*-*-*

It's after their first kiss that everything starts to come apart.

It's nothing big in the beginning. They fall into a relationship just as easily as they had fallen into friendship. Falling, it seems, is all too easy for Daiki when it comes to Kuroko Tetsuya.

And so what if, sometimes when they're kissing, Daiki feels the urge to push a little firmer, to grip a little tighter, to bite a little harder? So what if he wants to feel Tetsuya's naked flesh under his hands, if he wonders what his blood would taste like on Daiki's tongue? So what if, his mind lost in the haze of lust, he sometimes catches himself thinking  _eat him, eat him all up_ ?

It's nothing, surely. This must be what falling in love for the first time is like for everyone.

Right?

And then the dreams start.

*-*-*-*-*

_Daiki is running through the streets of West Tokyo. He's hiding from someone. But who it is, he doesn't know himself. The only thing he knows is that he needs to-_

_-run, run, quick, he's coming, he's coming here, he-_

_-turns a corner when all of a sudden, he trips over something lying on the ground. He looks back – the skyscrapers have turned into mammoth trees, standing tall and wide, their green crowns blocking the light even more than the concrete did. The ground is covered in leaves; as he continues to run, they swirl up and cling to his clothes until he's covered in leaves too, but for some reason these leaves are gray and soft like-_

_-fur, he wants your fur, don't let him catch-_

“ _-you!” Daiki shouts and blue eyes stare right back-_

_-Aomine-kun-_

_-as Daiki's vision clouds red like blood and-_

_-Aomine-kun-_

_-he looks down at his hands, my what big claws I have-_

_-Aomine-kun!-_

_-the better to kill you with, T-_

“-ETSU!”

“Aomine-kun, wake up!”

Daiki screams and trashes in the pale arms holding him tightly. When he finally comes to, Tetsuya is sitting on his lap, holding Daiki down with his weight while his arms pin Daiki's to his sides.

“A...h, Te...tsu...”

“It's alright, Aomine-kun. I'm here. I'm here.”

That's the problem, Daiki thinks, but doesn't say it.

*-*-*-*

The dreams continue, and they get worse. Sometimes, Daiki will dream of sinking his teeth into Tetsuya's neck and the river of blood flowing through his mind will be so vivid that he'll run to the bathroom, throw up and endlessly wash his hands that feel sticky red even though nothing is there. Other times, he'll dream of scissors cutting him open, and of that red-headed guy from the Kiseki, and he will wake up screaming in Tetsuya's arms – who stays over almost every day, now.

Once, just once, Daiki dreams of a white room.

_A man is standing in the middle of the room, a thick, leather bound book held against his chest._

_He's smiling._

_He seems vaguely familiar, but Daiki can't quite place him._

“ _Who are you?” he screams. “What do you want?”_

_The man caresses the book lovingly, three times before changing hands, always three times._

“ _I want nothing,” he says. “What do you want, Daiki-kun?”_

“ _This isn't real,” Daiki mutters to himself. “I want to go back, bring me back, you hear me old man?!”_

“ _Oh, but it is real, Daiki-kun,” the man says, still smiling. “So very, very real. Just like you wanted, isn't it?”_

“ _Real?” Daiki repeats._

“ _It's real,” the man says, the words echoing in the room, the echo growing louder and louder until Daiki can't hear himself think, until all that is left is that one word-_

_-real, real, real, it's real, it's real, IT'S REAL-_

It's real.

*-*-*-*-*

The next day, Tetsuya doesn't come to West Tokyo. Neither does he appear the day after, or the day after that one.

A week passes, and Tetsuya is nowhere to be seen.

Finally, Daiki decides to visit his home. He's known for a while where Tetsuya lives, but he didn't want to risk being caught on another gang's turf and besides, his mother was always home so it wasn't like they could actually  _do_ anything fun in there. 

When Daiki knocks at the door to Tetsuya's apartment, he's greeted by a woman with hollow cheeks and empty eyes.

“Are you... Tetsuya's friend?” she asks, her voice brittle and on the verge of cracking.

“Yeah. I'm, uh, Daiki, is Tetsu-”

“Come in, please,” the woman – probably Tetsuya's mother – says without letting him finish.

She leads him to a small room – and wow, they really must be rich, Daiki thinks absentmindedly, if they have more than one bedroom – and closes the door behind him, wordlessly leaving him there. A bed is standing by the window opposite the door; a familiar silhouette lies upon it.

“Tetsu!” Daiki shouts and runs to his bedside, only to stop abruptly in front of it. 

Tetsu is... vanishing. There really is no other word to say it. The pale boy lying on the bed in front of Daiki is but a shadow of his former self. His skin, though always pale, seems translucent now, as if Daiki needs to only squint and he would see the crumpled bedsheets beneath it.

“Te...tsu?”

At Daiki's voice, Tetsuya opens his eyes. They're not the vivid blue Daiki is used to – it's like someone took them out and put in glass marbles instead.

They're utterly lifeless.

“Da...i...ki...” Tetsuya croaks. “I'm... so...rry... I... lo...”

“Tetsu!” Daiki interrupts, kneeling on the bed, “What the hell happened?”

Tetsuya doesn't answer, seemingly having lost the strength to speak.

“Tetsu...?”

Daiki's hands are trembling when he cups them around Tetsuya's face; it feels like one wrong touch would be enough to break him. Leaning over him, Daiki puts his forehead to Tetsuya's, closes his eyes, feels Tetsuya's breath on his cheeks.

At least there's still that.

“It's because you didn't eat him,” a voice says from the direction of the door. 

Daiki looks up sharply and his breathing stops. The man from his dreams, still smiling, still holding the book, is standing near the entrance.

“What... are you...?”

“What am I saying?” the man asks, coming closer. “You should know that all too well, Daiki-kun. As for what I am, well, I must disappoint you; that is a story for another time.”

“You bastard, what did you do to Tetsu?! He doesn't deserve this!”

The man's smile widens.

“You're right, he doesn't. Tetsuya is, after all, the hero.” The man's hand strokes over Tetsuya's hair once before Daiki slaps it away. “That's why it wasn't me who did this, Daiki-kun.” The man is outright _grinning_.

“It was you.”

Daiki shakes his head, left, right, as if in trance.

“I... don't... understand...”

“You didn't eat him,” the man repeats. “You were supposed to eat him, but you didn't. If you don't eat him, there's no fairy tale. If there's no fairy tale, there's no hero. You need to eat him, then cut him out again. It's that simple.”

His hand caresses the old, old leather as he speaks, always three times.

“Cut him... out?”

“Yes!” the man smiles as if Daiki got an A on his test. “Eat him, then cut him out...” the man leans down and Daiki can't move, “...right here.” His finger, cold as ice even through clothes, points directly at Daiki's heart.

And Daiki...

Daiki understands.

*-*-*-*-*

When Tetsuya wakes up, the sky is painted in the soft blue-gray of just before dawn. Soft noises from the city below filter through the window; a gentle breeze ruffles the curtains.

For a few minutes, Tetsuya simply stares up at the ceiling, taking the time to wake up all the way and to bring his strangely muddy thoughts in order. Even though he went to bed late in the evening, he feels like he's been asleep for weeks. Perhaps that is why he woke up so early.

Finally, Tetsuya gets up and goes to the bathroom. While brushing his teeth, he notices a rash on the sensitive part of his skin just below his ear. It's red and oval-shaped; something must have bitten him there. When he touches the mark, it hurts, not just beneath his ear, but also somewhere in his head.

It feels like accidentally pressing on a wound you're not aware of.

Having finished washing up and dressing himself, Tetsuya leaves his room and enters the adjacent living room. For some reason, his mother is sleeping on the couch, her face turned towards his room as if keeping watch. She looks incredibly, awfully tired. Tetsuya doesn't wake her.

Instead, he heads out into the early morning.

As Tetsuya walks around the neighborhood, he feels strangely disoriented. He knows his way around here – he's been living here since the end of the war – but it feels like something is missing from those memories when clearly, nothing should be.

Lost in his thoughts, Tetsuya doesn't notice that he's been straying from his path until it's too late and he suddenly looks up to find himself in West Tokyo, of all places. As he's standing in the middle of the street and trying to recall how and why he got here and how to get back, a tall man bumps into him, knocking Tetsuya to the ground.

“Oi, watch where you're going, kid!”

“I'm not a kid,” Tetsuya replies sullenly, almost on instinct.

“Huh, no, I guess you're not. Who are you, then? This is Touou territory, y'know.”

When Tetsuya looks up, the man – who seems to be Tetsuya's age – is offering him a hand up. Tetsuya takes it, and the man pulls him up with hardly any effort at all.

Tetsuya stares. The man is wearing an open jacket over his bare chest, which is covered in bandages.

“Well?” the man prompts impatiently. 

“I...apologize. I was taking a walk around the Tokyo Center and got lost,” Tetsuya says, still staring. “Excuse me, this might sound rude, but... have we... met somewhere?”

The man laughs.

“You're a thousand years too early to try and pick me up with a line like that! And now, scram, before the other guys see you.”

“People don't usually see me.”

“'s that so? Well, I see you just fine, and I see that you're still here.”

Silence.

“That wound, on your chest...” Tetsuya says, ignoring the other man's words. “Does it... hurt?”

“Nah,” the man says, “not anymore. I used to have something stuck in there, that was painful as fuck. But then I cut it out, and now it's fine.”

“Ah...” Tetsuya says, “that's good.”

It doesn't feel good at all.

He should go back.

“You should go back,” the man echoes Tetsuya's thoughts. He grins. “Or the big bad wolf is gonna find and eat you.”

Tetsuya looks up again.

_What blue eyes you have..._

He shakes his head.

“Then, goodbye,” Tetsuya says and bows slightly. He passes the man and goes back the way he came from. He walks slowly at first, then his steps speed up, and then Tetsuya is racing through the streets, his own breathing echoing loudly in his ears.

His chest hurts. His eyes are watering.

Must be the strain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and please leave a comment on your way out! :)  
> Join me at Tumblr: ao-yama.tumblr.com


End file.
